Fresh Perspective

Darpan Bhatt

Co-president of Bhatt International

Darpan Bhatt spent much of his childhood traveling between the United States and India as his father worked to build Bhatt International, a nonferrous scrap trading and processing company he founded in 1986. Bhatt International has locations in Kansas City, Missouri, and Jamnagar, India.

“My grandfather used to run a kerosene merchant business in India,” Darpan says. “My father grew [that business] as much as he could, but he wanted to go out and do something on his own. He saw the opportunity to be had buying and selling metal.”

His parents wanted to raise their children in the United States while continuing to run the scrap business in India, Darpan says, so he spent six months of the year in the U.S. and six months in India and enjoyed visiting Bhatt International’s scrap warehouses in Jamnagar with his father.

Darpan says he always planned to get outside work experience before joining the family scrap business; however, he and his older brother, Parth, had to step in earlier than planned when their father died in 2008. Parth joined the business in 2008 at the age of 18, and Darpan joined full time after graduating from college in 2016 to serve as a co-president alongside his older brother.

When he joined the company, Darpan says Parth encouraged him to learn all the various positions within the company to get a better understanding of its operations. He began by working on the logistics team before transitioning to the finance department.

“My brother, who is four years older than me, always told me, ‘You need to get a boss before you become a boss,’” Darpan says. “It’s a philosophy I carried with me. When I joined the company, he made me live by those standards as well.”

Darpan adds that taking on a variety of roles helped him to grow in his career. “There’s always new challenges thrown at you,” he says. “Your ability to adapt and excel in that is what makes you successful.”

In the following interview, he shares more about his experiences working in the family scrap business.

"Your ability to adapt and excel … is what makes you successful.”

Recycling Today (RT): What has it been like working for your family's business since you joined in 2016?

Darpan Bhatt (DB): The best way to summarize it is “small team, big family.” We’re still what I would consider a small business. We want to maintain the values you gain by operating as a close-knit group where everyone knows everyone [and] everyone is there to support each other.

RT: What have material flows been like for nonferrous scrap this year?

DB: If you look at 2020 [and] 2021, they were incredible. There was a lot more scrap moved, especially in the last two years. ...

You [would] go speak with suppliers, and scrap yards were [reporting] 20 percent, 40 percent, 60 percent less volume than the previous year. The volumes are stabilizing out.

For two years we saw aggressive growth. ... Now, we’re seeing what the industry was beforehand, with markets being reduced.

RT: You attended the 2023 Bureau of International Recycling World Recycling Convention this year. What were some insights you gained?

DB: We are entering a much more versatile market. In 2018 [and] 2019, there were a lot of restrictions in China that made scrap flows pivot. As a result, we have seen equipment manufacturers putting in downstreams and new markets becoming homes for materials that weren’t sent there before. ... You’re seeing a lot more [international] trading happening, even between the U.S. and Europe, and a lot of new manufacturing is popping up in new places.